pedagogy, which had appeared in that year. There were treatises on different questions relating to the management of schools and the instruction of the young; accounts of particular schools in different parts of Germany; obituaries of eminent teachers and professors, who had ceased their labors in this world; biographies of others still engaged in their important avocations; and all kinds of school books properly so called. The tables of the publishers were literally covered with books issued expressly for the schools and teachers, and generally written by members of the profession.

This shows, also, how much is being done at the present time in Germany to improve the science of pedagogy.

Having thus described the character and social position of the great profession of Prussian teachers, I shall now show what education the law requires each of them to have received, before it allows him to engage in the work of instruction; for it must be remembered, that no person, whether he be a foreigner or a native, is allowed to act as a teacher of any public or private school in the kingdom of Prussia, until he has passed a very rigid examination in all the subjects of school instruction, and has obtained a diploma from his examiners, stating that he is fit to be a teacher.

In each of the different provinces of Prussia the government has established five or six great colleges, intended expressly for the education of the teachers. Each county possesses at least one, nearly all have two of them. They are all endowed, partly by the state and partly by private benefactors. The education given in them is perfectly gratuitous; at least one-half of the cost of boarding each student is borne by the state, or defrayed out of the funds of the college, on the most liberal scale; and every thing is provided, which can possibly contribute to the perfection of the training and education of the students.

No attempt has been made to give the education of the teachers any political bias. The normal colleges are widely dispersed throughout the country. They are situated close to the homes of the students, and at great distances from the center of government; so that the patriotic sentiments naturally resulting from the humble origin of the young teachers are not weakened; nor are their local sympathies ever interrupted by the young men being removed, during the period of their education, into a distant and uncongenial political atmosphere. Neither does the government undertake the actual direction of these great and important establishments. Each of them, with only two or three exceptions, is put under the care of a religious minister of the sect, for the education of whose teachers it is destined.

In each province, there are, as I have before stated, five or six of these institutions. In each county, there are generally two. If the inhabitants of a county are composed of Romanists and Protestants in pretty equal proportions, one of these colleges is devoted to the education of the Romanist teachers, the other to that of the Protestant. If nearly all the inhabitants of a county are of one faith, both of the normal colleges are devoted to the education of the teachers of this faith; and the teachers of the minority are educated in one of the colleges of a neighboring county. There are only two normal colleges in Prussia, where Romanist and Protestant teachers are professedly educated together. The directors of these great institutions are chosen from among the clergy. The director of a Romanist college is chosen by the Romanist bishop of the province, in which the college is situated; and the director of a Protestant college is chosen by the ecclesiastical authorities of the province, in which the college is situated; subject, however, in both cases, to the approbation of the Minister of Education in Berlin, who has the power of objecting, if an unsuitable or injudicious choice is made. The normal colleges are thus put under the supervision of the religious bodies. The government itself directs their management. It recognizes the importance of these colleges having a decidedly religious character; and, at the same time, of the education given in them being of the most liberal kind. On the one hand, therefore, it intrusts the direction of them to the clergy; and, on the other hand, it reserves the right of examining them, so as to have the power of interfering, in case the secular education of the students should be injudiciously curtailed. The director of each college appoints all the professors and teachers. The religious ministers have, therefore, a considerable share of the direction of these

institutions. Their character is decidedly religious, and a union between the clergy and the teachers is effected, which is productive of the best possible results.

The students remain in these colleges about three years. They live in the institution. Almost the whole of the expenses of their education, and of their board, are paid out of the funds of the college.

If a young man wishes to enter into one of these normal colleges, he need not travel far from home. Within a day's journey of his own village, is to be found one of the normalco lleges of his country. If he is able to pass the preparatory examination, and to procure carefully attested certificates of character, he is received as an inmate of the college on a vacancy occurring. During the time of his sojourn there, and during the continuance of his arduous studies, he is in constant communication with all his old associates and friends, and constantly revisits the scenes of his boyhood His sympathies with his people are thus preserved intact. None of his old connections with his village are broken; he remains the son, the brother, and the companion of the peasants. His life in the normal college is very simple and laborious; the change from its arduous discipline and duties, to those of a village teacher, is a change for the better. The teacher is not rendered discontented with his simple village life, by being pampered in the college; the laborious and self-denying discipline of the college teaches him, how to combine the simplicity of the peasant, with the learning of the scholar. It is the design of these Prussian colleges to send forth simpleminded, industrious, religious, and highly educated peasant teachers; and not affected pedagogues, or mere conceited and discontented gentlemen. Nobly, most nobly, have they fulfilled their mission! Prussia may well be proud of her 30,000 teachers.

Each one in his village, and in his district, is laboring among the poor, not so much to teach them their A, B, C, and mere school-room learning, as to enable them to think; to show them the present, as well as the future advantages of manly virtue, and to explain to them, how much their own prosperity in life depends upon their own exertions. This is education.

Oh! if we could once be taught to recognize the vast benefits, which education must confer upon the people, if we could once be taught to understand, the meaning of the term, and the nature of the undertaking, it would not be long, ere each one of our counties would possess its two normal colleges, and each one of our villages its educated teachers and its school. We have the power, but not the will. We do not understand the vast importance of education to the people. It has been said, by persons desirous of screening our own shameful neglect of the people's education, by the abuse of the great efforts of our neighbors, that the teachers of Prussia have been, in reality, nothing more than the paid servants of an absolute power, intended to prepare the minds of the people to passive submission to a despotic government. Nothing can be more shamefully and ignorantly false than this assertion.

I have a right to speak on this subject, as I have seen more, perhaps, of the Prussian teachers, than any of my countrymen; and of this I am certain, that the sympathies of the Prussian teachers have always been notoriously with the people, and not with the government. The Prussian government has always, in fact, bitterly complained of the too liberal spirit which actuates the teacher's profession, but without effect; the body is popular in its origin, its position, its education, and its sympathies. Many of the warmest friends of constitutional progress in Prussia have always been found among the teachers; and, it is a fact, well worthy of consideration, that liberal and constitutional ideas never made so rapid a progress in Prussia, at any period of its history, as they have done since the establishment of the present system of education. I believe, that the teachers and the schools of Prussia have been the means of awakening in that country that spirit of inquiry and that love of freedom, which forced the government to grant a bona fide constitution to the country.

An evidence of the free spirit, which has pervaded the Prussian teachers, may be derived from the fact, that the Prussian government found itself compelled, in 1831, to address a circular order to the teachers, in which, after reciting that the government had been informed, that some of the teachers had converted their

class-rooms into political lecture rooms, and had selected the political topics of the day as the subject of remark, if not of instruction, it prohibited such subjects being introduced into the lessons by the teachers, and ordered the inspectors to prevent the teachers perverting their schools to such objects as these.

The very fact, that such a prohibition was found necessary, proves that my own observations were correct. If further proof were needed, it might be told, that the people have elected many teachers as their representatives in the different Diets; thus proving their esteem and respect for the able instructors of their children.

As nearly all the expenses of the young teacher's education in the normal colleges, are borne by the country at large, and not by himself, it has been thought advisable to require some kind of guarantee, that those, who are educated in the colleges, will really, when their education is completed, labor as teachers in the village schools, and not merely use their college education as a preparation for other more lucrative situations.

In order, therefore, to secure an adequate return for the expenditure of the country, it has been decreed by the government:

"1st. That every young man, who is received into a normal college, shall bind himself, by an agreement, to remain for three years, after leaving the college, at the disposition of the government; and during such three years, to take any situation, which the authorities of the district, in which the normal college is situated, should offer him, or to which they should wish to translate him.

"2d. That if he does not comply with this condition as soon as required to do so, he shall repay to the normal college the cost of the education and maintenance, which had been gratuitously given to him."

Every year, at a fixed period, of which public notice has been previously given in the local papers, the directors and professors of each of the normal colleges hold a public meeting, at which the magistrates of the county and the religious ministers are present, for the purpose of examining all young men, who are desirous of obtaining admission into the normal college for the purpose of being educated as teachers.

These examinations are open to all young men, even of the poorest classes, many of whom enter the lists, as almost all the expenses of the collegiate course are, as I have said, borne by the state, or defrayed out of the funds of the college.

Every competitor at one of these examinations must forward to the director of the college, a fortnight before the examination takes place

1. A certificate signed by his religious minister, and certifying that his character and past life have been moral and blameless.

2. A certificate from a physician, certifying his freedom from chronic complaints, and the soundness of his constitution and health.

3. A certificate of his having been vaccinated within the last two years.

4. A certificate of his baptism, (if a Christian.)

5. A certificate, signed by two or more teachers, of his previous industrious and moral habits, and sufficient abilities for the teacher's profession.

On the day appointed, all the young candidates, who have complied with the preceding regulations, and who have attained the age of seventeen, are examined at the college, in the presence of the county magistrates, and of the religious ministers, by the directors and professors of the college, in all the subjects of instruction given in the highest classes of the primary schools; i. e.,

When the examination is concluded, a list is made out, in which the names of the young men are inscribed in order, according to the proficiency and ability they have displayed in their examination. As many of the highest in the list are then elected, as students of the college, as there are vacancies that year, occasioned by the departure of those who have left the college to take the charge of village schools.

Those who are elected, as well as their parents or guardians, are then required to subscribe the agreements I have before mentioned; and the successful candidates are then admitted as residents of the college for two or three years, according to the length of residence required by the rules of the college.

The time of residence in Prussia is generally three, and never less than two years. The time of residence in the normal colleges in the neighboring kingdom of Saxony is always FOUR years. When the young men have been once admitted into the normal college, their education as teachers commences. It must however, be borne in mind, that the Prussian teacher, when he first enters a normal college, has generally before that period enjoyed a much better education, and knows much more then, than an English teacher does when he undertakes the management of a school. Unless he did, he would not be able to obtain admission into a normal college. When he leaves the normal college, he has had a better general education, than nine out of every ten men who leave our Universities.

The education of a good teacher is a very difficult matter, and, principally, for this reason: Nothing, but a very high education can fit an individual for the proper performance of that most delicate, difficult, and important duty, the education of a child. Great learning, even when accompanied with good principles, is often apt to unfit its possessor for the humble duties of a teacher's life; the mingling, living, and conversing with, and the advising the peasants; the laborious and often unnoticed and unrequited labors of the school-room; the constant and wearying struggle with sloth, ignorance, filth, bad habits, and immorality; with the opposition of the prejudiced, and the ignorance of the uneducated parents; with the misrepresentations of his scholars; and with the neglect of the community. The learned teacher has all this, and more than this, to contend with. He finds himself in such a situation, having received an education fitting him for a very different sphere of action, deserving much higher emolument, and inclining him to seek a very different kind of employment. Such a man, if he has received only an intellectual training, sure, sooner or later, to fly from his profession, and seek out an employment more congenial to his newly acquired tastes, or, if he remains at his post, he remains discontented, and, by discontent, totally unfitted to perform his duties aright.

Now the Prussian and the German normal colleges have avoided this difficulty in the following manner: They give the teachers a very high intellectual education, but they give them something more: they educate their habits also; they accustom the young men, whilst they are in the colleges, to the most laborious and most menial duties; to combine high intellectual endowments with the performance of the humblest duties of a peasant's life; and to acquire high literary attainments whilst living on a peasant's diet, wearing a peasant's dress, and laboring harder than any peasant is ever called upon to do. When, therefore, the students leave the colleges, they find their positions, as village teachers, situations of less labor, of less real drudgery, and of more comfort, than those which they formerly occupied in the colleges. By these means, their sympathies for the labors and simplicity of the class, from which they sprung are cherished, whilst the labors of the class-room are rendered light and easy by comparison with the labors and daily duties of the normal college. Thus, the college does not engender discontent, but braces the young teacher to his work, and prepares him to encounter it with pleasure.

The education given in the normal colleges of Germany and Switzerland may then be said to consist of two distinct parts:

1st. The intellectual training.

2d. The industrial training.

1st. THE INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.-This, I have before said, is of a very high character. I have shown what knowledge a young man must have acquired, before he can gain admittance into a normal college. This is only the groundwork of his education in the college. During his three year's residence he continues his studies in

Biblical history.

The history of Christianity,

Luther's catechism,

Reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar.

He further enters upon a new and regular course of study in

Besides these subjects of study, the young men generally learn the Latin and French languages, and very often the English also. I met several teachers who knew all three. These latter acquirements are not, however, required; but without the former, a young man could not obtain a teachers diploma, or officiate in any school as a teacher, nor would he be accepted by the inhabitants of a parish. The first two years of a teacher's residence in the normal college are devoted almost exclusively to these studies; the third year is divided between them and the daily practice of teaching in the model schools, connected with the college. Here they first practice as teachers, under the eye and direction of an experienced professor, who is able to show them how to impart knowledge in the best manner, and how to manage and direct all the minutiæ of school discipline. Those who imagine, that any one is fit for the performance of these duties without any preparation, show themselves as ignorant of the duties of a teacher, as they are careless about the improvement and happiness of the people.

Besides the subjects of instruction I have noticed, the law requires, that each student shall be taught how to distinguish poisonous herbs; what are, and how to use, the antitodes of different poisons; how to treat the more common accidents which laborers are liable to meet with; and what remedies and treatment to make use of in cases of scalds, burns, and bites of mad dogs. The teachers are required to impart this instruction to the scholars of the primary schools, so that every person may be capable of acting for himself and without delay, in cases of such daily occurrence, and where a short delay in administering a simple and necessary remedy often proves fatal.

The teacher is thus qualified in simple cases to act as the village doctor; and in country villages, where no surgeon or medical adviser lives within many miles, the teacher's medical knowledge proves invaluable, both to himself and to the people, among whom he dwells. As the uneducated always esteem a man much more if he exhibits a knowledge of the practical arts and appliances of life, the benefit and use of which they can understand, than for any reputation he may have of learning, of the use of which they have generally but a vague idea; so this practical knowledge of the teachers tends greatly to raise them in the estimation and respect of their poorer neighbors, and by this means to give greater influence and effect to their advice and teachings.

2d. THE INDUSTRIAL TRAINING.-This consists, generally, of the performance of all the ordinary household work, preparing the meals, taking care of, the sleeping apartments, pruning the fruit-trees, and cultivating, in the lands always attached to the colleges, the vegetables necessary for the use of the household.

The students are required to rise at five o'clock, and to retire to rest by ten at the latest; and in turn to wait upon the professors and on one another; to ring the bell for classes, &c.; to pump the water required for the daily use of the establishment; to go to the post-office for letters; and to teach in the class-rooms of the village school attached to the college.

The whole of every day is occupied by the regular routine of these duties, and by attendance at the lectures of the principal and the professors. There is no unoccupied time, and therefore, no time for the formation of idle or immoral habits. The college course is a laborious, severe, but healthy course of life; bracing up the mind, the body, and the habits, to the exertions of the future career. It is a more than Spartan discipline.

Every year, during its continuance, the young men are rigorously examined, to see whether they are making such progress in their studies, as to afford satisfactory reason for hoping that, at the end of their course of study, they will be able to succeed in gaining a diploma or certificate of competence. When it is found that a young man is incapable, or idle, and that his progress is not such as to insure his probable success in the final examination for diplomas, he is removed from the college, to make room for some more worthy recipient of the national bounty, and of some more worthy candidate for the teachers' profession.